Mass immigration kills Aussie culture, says demographer Bob Birrell
By staff writers
Herald Sun
March 24, 2010 7:49AM
* 'Migration causes social problems'
* Population expected to hit 35 million by 2050
* Calls for enquiry into migration numbers
* Aussie asylum seeker numbers buck world trend
TRADITIONS based on heritage, sporting culture and common language are threatened by mass immigration, a leading demographer has warned.
Monash University population expert Dr Bob Birrell has said the huge influx of people with few or no English skills had created social problems in Melbourne suburbs such as Dandenong, Sunshine and Broadmeadows and most major cities were feeling the population strain, the Herald Sun reported.
"This is not a pretty picture," he said. "Social divisions are becoming more obvious and geographically concentrated and certain areas are being overlain by an ethnic identification."
Dr Birrell made the explosive comments in an article for Policy,a magazine published by the Centre for Independent Studies,a right-wing think tank.
In a plea to the Rudd Government to slash the current immigrant intake of 180,000 a year, Dr Birrell warned that the predicted population of 35 million by 2050 would be a disaster for urban living and the environment.
"One would have to wander deaf, dumb and blind through Australian capital cities to not notice how urban congestion has already reduced the quality of life," he said.
The intake dominated by people from non-English speaking backgrounds was transforming Australia, Dr Birrell said.
"We are losing core elements of what was once shared. Almost all could once aspire to a house and land ... and sharing a common language, sporting culture and heritage," he said.
But mass migration was creating ethnic enclaves in suburbs with cheap housing, and planning rules were forcing Australian-born "losers" and non-English speaking background migrants to live in congested neighbourhoods, "cheek by jowl".
Population target
Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he believes in a big Australia. In a recent speech he declared that migration was "good for our national security, good for our long-term prosperity, good in enhancing our role in the region and the world".
But the Federal Opposition and the Greens said questions needed to be asked about Australia's immigration plans.
Opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, told the ABC there should be an inquiry into how many people the nation can support.
"It's about what the carrying capacity is," he said. "We need to get that perspective from regional areas as well as metropolitan areas, where issues of congestion and housing affordability are major problems as well as public transport.
"What's more important, is the process for planning. For example, the states and territories have no input into questions of immigration and migration intakes but they're the ones at the end of the day that have to service the needs that are created by it."
Greens Leader Bob Brown said there should be an independent national inquiry into Australia's population target.
"So that politicians do have an idea of the carrying capacity of this country, its infrastructure, its ability to deal with those quite worrying projections of 35 million people by 2050," he said. "We've got to do better than just say well let it happen."
Other leading academics have also questioned the challenge that mass intake of migrants will pose.
In their book Australia's Immigration Revolution, Andrew Markus, James Jupp and Peter McDonald agrue that while immigration "offers ‘the most immediate and simplest short term measure to deal with labour and skills shortages" it also comes with serious questions about social cohesion.
Prior to the 1950s 80 per cent of immigrants came from the United Kingdom. Between the 50s and the 1960s migrants from continental Europe became the majority.
After the abolition of the White Australia policy in the early 1970s the mixture of migration changed again. Today, the largest proportion of immigrants come from Asia and Oceania. China and India rival New Zealand and Britian as the biggest source of immigrants.
Many of the catastrophic outcomes alluded to by Bob Birrell are already facts of life in Australia's “Occupied Territories”, Multicultural ghettos, no go zones for anyone who is, or identifies as Australian.
The South Western suburbs of Sydney are a good example of what Bob Birrell is trying to warn Australians and our Numb Nutted “leaders “of.These suburbs have been colonized predominantly by Middle Eastern “refugees” and escapees from Lebanon sent here by the Syrian Government during the 70’s and later in the 80’ and 90’s by targeted selection by Australian Labor (Socialist) Governments.
These Muslim Middle Eastern immigrants have at every opportunity made known their hatred of Australians,our Judeo Christian based legal and democratic governmental structures and everything that has manifested the Nation that RAN AWAY TOO NOT FROM and hold in such contempt with the exception of Australia’s FREE Hospital and Medical, subsidised Pharmacy,FREE Tax payer provided housing,Life long social security payments for them and their indigent off spring,FREE education,FREE Dental,FREE translation services for LIFE,Subsidised public transport fares for LIFE, Subsidised child minding fees,Subsidised Gas Electricity and Water charges,these are just a few of the parts (hand outs) these Muslim colonialists apparently LIKE about Australia.
The Government of New South Wales has even provided a specialist consanguineous / incest marriage unit at Auburn Hospital (a Public Hospital now part of the Occupied Territories) in order to deal with the tragic and grotesque manifestations of Middle Eastern Muslims sexual preferences.
The Government of NSW has also provided a dedicated Middle Eastern Crime task force within the NSW Police Force / Service to Police the Muslim Middle Eastern Drug importation / Distribution,Car re birthing / export,Protection rackets and Islamic Rape Gangs who target “Aussie Sluts and Pigs” of ANY age.
Ahh!!!! the joys of Multiculturalism. Australians have never known such divisive HATRED and lack of social cohesion since the official imposition of Multiculturalism during the Socialist Australian Labor Party Government of E.G Whitlam, sold to Australians by Australia's TV and Hollywood Idiot Wannabees, Social Justice Snake Oil Salesmen and various “Christian Religious Leaders” via the mindless slogan / jingle / bumper sticker of “It’s Time” over thirty years ago.
Australia has never recovered from culturally and socially from the relatively short time Whitlam and his subversives were in power.
The Muslim inbreeding problem comes to Australia
Within Sydney's Middle Eastern community inter family marriage seems to be on the rise and it is leading to a high incidence of children born with defects: Erin O' Dwyer explores the devastating cost of a tradition that many in the West regard as taboo.
A smile twists across Kaled Assoum's face. Lying in his cot, he gurgles happily as his mother, Randa, tickles his belly and kisses him on the face. The eight-year-old, pictured above with his grandmother, was born with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. He cannot walk or talk, and feeds through a tube in his stomach. He has the mental capacity of a one-year-old. "I still love him day after day" his father Mohammed says. "From the beginning I was a bit sad and she was a bit sad. She started crying but I said in the end we can't do anything. That’s how God created him. Even if we cry from now on until 100 years, you can't do anything."
It is almost two decades since doctors at Sydney's Auburn Hospital began to research a devastating pattern of birth defects among babies born to Lebanese families. Led by pioneering obstetrician Dr Caroline de Costa, the study showed significant increases in birth defects, stillbirths and miscarriages among women who were married to blood relatives, particularly first and second cousins from families who came largely but not exclusively, from the Middle East. The study found that one in three Lebanese women were married to a cousin and, across the hospital's maternity ward, one in 10 women had married a cousin. Even more alarming was the finding that babies born to these women were four times more likely to be stillborn and eight times more likely to suffer serious birth defects.
Ten years later, maternity ward staff reported these marriages were on the rise. De Costa followed up her landmark study, interviewing every pregnant women who booked into the hospital's maternity ward in one year. In 2001 she published her results,revealing that almost 20 per cent of women were consanguineously married. Of those,more than half were married to first cousins and almost 60 per cent were born in Australia.
Fifteen babies born to consanguineous couples - related by birth - at Auburn Hospital had severe defects, including heart, kidney and liver function problems. Among non-cousin couples there were five disabled babies - one with a cleft lip and two with club feet. Of those babies that died - six in total - all were born to consanguineous couples. "What was interesting," de Costa wrote at the time, "was that the proportion of pregnant women who were consanguineously married had risen from 11 per cent in the 1980s to 19.6 per cent in 1999. "In other words.. .consanguineous marriage is continuing to be commonly practised by the next generation. Accurate information about risks and non-judgemental genetic counselling need to be available."
When loving your family breeds tragic consequences.
For most in the West, consanguinity is abhorrent but across the world it is a respected cultural practice. Globally at least, 20 per cent of people live in places where cousin-to-cousin marriage is preferred, and nearly 10 per cent of people have consanguineous parents. It is accepted in South-East Asia, Japan, Brazil and Africa, and is particularly common in the Middle East among Muslims and Christians. In Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, about half of all marriages are consanguineous while in Lebanon it is about 25 per cent. At Westmead's Children's hospital, people from 14 Middle
Eastern and African nationalities attended genetic counselling. There are no figures on how widespread inter-family marriage is in Australia, but among immigrant communities in Britain and Canada the practice is even more common than in their country of origin.
Researchers say the trend is the same here. Families want to continue cultural traditions, and the small pool of potential spouses makes intermarriage more likely. Traditionally,the practice has been driven by economics. Dowries were reduced, and landholdings were preserved. Spouses had similar social status, and were thus considered more compatible. In modem times, family support has remained a key factor, as well as a practical way of bringing new family members into the country
So it was for second cousins Randa and Mohammed Assoum. But when Kaled, their fourth son, was born, his severe disabilities shocked them. His birth should have brought joy Instead there was sadness. And questions. "The doctors didn't say it was because we were related, but they did say stop... no more kids," Mohammed says. "We didn't feel angry we just accepted it. It's our faith that makes us accept it."
Their intense love has also seen them through the dark days. The couple remember being sweet on each other as children and when Mohammed emigrated from Lebanon to Australia as a teenager, he knew Randa would one day join him. In Sydney, he worked long hours on construction sites to win her hand in marriage. "Since we were little, our families said, 'She belongs to him and he belongs to her'," Mohammed says.
It was the same story for the couple's siblings. Randa's three brothers married Mohammed's three sisters, and their homes are clustered around the
Auburn area. They are successful, self-sufficient and extremely supportive. But Kaled's disabilities have forced them to reconsider their cultural practices. "What we're hearing from doctors and what happened to us, it's very hard now to let our daughters and sons marry from their family".
Mohammed says. "I wish my sons and daughters would not marry from their family" It is a viewpoint rippling across the Lebanese community
Nonetheless the subject is extremely sensitive, and families fear recrimination for a practice that has long been completely the nor in the East, yet taboo in the West.
The Assoum family was alone in agreeing to tell their story openly to The Sun-Herald but those who spoke on the condition of anonymity admitted they too did not want their children to marry within the family. Lebanese-born mother-of-nine Patima says it is a view supported by the Koran, which states that marriage outside the family helps create new friendships and bonds.
But cousin marriage was common in Fatima's family, and she felt that she and her cousin were well-suited. "But back then I wouldn't have thought about children," Fatima says. "I didn't think of him as a cousin. I was just thinking, is this a partner I can live with?" Fatima says that although her children are all healthy they are ashamed of their parents' marriage. Their grandparents would like the tradition to continue, but Fatima remains opposed. "My children are rejecting it," she says. "They feel ashamed about it so they hide it and they don't talk about it."
Australian-born mother-of-two Salima says she does not explain her family situation to anyone. "For us, it's a very normal situation," she says. "But it's a very difficult topic, because in this society it is unacceptable." Salima was still at university when she first met her older cousin - an engineer from Lebanon who moved to Australia to find work. The pair fell in love and later married. Their youngest son, now 14, is autistic."No one has ever said it is because you are married to your cousin," says Salima, who works in the finance industry "but I've thought about it myself over the years and
I've started to question it. I've learnt to live with the situation, but it's not something I would want my children to do."
It is the wind of change that the medical fraternity has been praying for. The risk of defect or death in babies born to cousin couples is double that of the general population - about 6 per cent compared to 3 percent. Butde Costa's year-long project showed significantly higher risks, perhaps due to the the smaller gene pool in Australian immigrant communities.
Auburn Hospital obstetrician Greg Jenkins who worked with de Costa on the study before she relocated to Queensland - says it is vital that families are educated about the risks, particularly those who face higher risks due to known genetic conditions or a history of intermarriage. In cases where women access high quality ultrasounds early in their pregnancy abnormalities can be identified and couples referred to genetic counselling. They can then decide to terminate - an option allowed in the Muslim faith in the first trimester - or proceed with the pregnancy under expert medical care. But
Jenkins says poor levels of awareness mean that many women book into antenatal clinics too late, and never see trained genetic counsellors or paediatric specialists.
Yet even women with the best medical care have stories that are heartbreaking. Jenkins tells of one woman who learnt at 19 weeks that her baby had a lethal brain abnormality She decided to carry the child. "From her perspective, it was the will of God," Jenkins says. "It broke her heart, but the way she approached it was that she would do the best she could because it was something over which she had no control. "It was a very painful experience.. .a very challenging and confronting situation. My staff kept wanting to send her away for more tests and I said, 'No, that's not -what she wants'." In the end, the woman's baby died an hour after birth. "[But] she got to meet her baby and she got to comfort it," Jenkins says. "She didn't have to make the decision to terminate the life of her child. Her next baby was fine and it brought great joy to everyone involved."
At the children’s hospital at Westmead geneticist Professor David Sillence believes consanguinity may have outlived its usefulness. "When you make the transition from Lebanon to Australia, the bank is on George Street in Parramatta - it's no longer money which the family holds in it own pocket,"
Sillence says. "Consanguinity doesn't necessarily preserve marriages anymore and it doesn't necessarily protect women from abuse within the family
It puts women in a relationship within their household where they not only have a husband but a father-in-law who is related to them because he is the uncle and there is increased pressure on them.
"There is a dysgenic [relating to or causing degeneration in the type of offspring produced] effect that's been shown in repeated studies." One of those is reproductive loss, Sillence says. He has devoted his career to untangling the complicated family tree of Sydney's Middle Eastern community
He tells the story of a Pakistani woman who had five pregnancies, all ending in miscarriage at 16 to 18 weeks. But he was surprised by the depth of grief in the community, particularly among men."I was not prepared for Mediterranean males who sit and cry for one hour about their sadness," he says. Dozens of men spoke to Sillence during a study at Westmead in the late 1990s. He hoped his research would lead to a funding grant to help establish a data bank of rare disorders, and improve screening and testing options.
But September 11 put paid to that. The research funding dried up and the community closed up. Politicians became uninterested in health. Sillence hopes his research will gain momentum again. In the meantime, he mops up the tears and discourages interfamily marriage, except in cases where love is Involved. This is because only love can overcome the vast grief. "You cannot know how much grief there is until you do a study like this," he says. "Your only research cost is Kleenex tissues. Grief can be like a well and that well is very deep for these families."It's grief heaped upon grief.. .the personal grief of a miscarriage, heaped upon the grief of a community, heaped upon grief in an international context."
For Randa and Mohammed Assoum, love has kept them together. And as they sit side by side in the lounge room of their Lidcombe home, their connection is obvious. They giggle, and smile at each other, recounting their courtship. "I loved him," Randa says shyly. "We're still in love and we'll never stop loving each other," Mohammed says. "Not everyone has that we're just lucky,thank God. And we love our children very much."
The risks are far greater when blood relatives marry
* Consanguinity describes the relationship between blood relatives.Most common is marriage between first cousins.
* Birth defects occur because blood relatives share a greater number of genes, so there is a greater chance of both parents sharing the same faulty gene.
* Children risk inheriting two copies of the same faulty gene, and so being born with a genetic disability.
* Parents who are not related face a 3 per cent risk of having a disabled child. For first cousins, the risk is twice as high.
But, says Dr Kristine Barlow-Stewart, from the centre for Genetics Education, this means the vast majority of children are born healthy. "People think they will automatically have a child with genetic problems and of course that's not so,"she says. "The risk of having a [disabled] child when the parents are first cousins is around 5-6 per cent. "The problem is that where there is a tradition for relatives to marry, you'll get the grandparents who are first cousins,the parents who are first cousins and the children who are first cousins. Then the chance of them sharing the same faulty gene is compounded and there risk is much greater than the 5to 6 per cent risk."
The above article appeared in the Sydney "Sun Herald" on 28 May, 2006, Pgs 77 & 80 under the heading: "The family ties that bind".
Whilst Millions of Dollars are been spent trying to rectify and dealing with the manifestations of Muslim cultural / perversions /bizarre marriage customs and sexual practices, Australian veterans and pensioners are told they cannot access a bed for a knee or hip replacement or even more urgent life saving surgery for up to two or more years, Australian women have given birth to their babies in Hospital Waiting room toilets and in cleaners cupboards because the FREE Medicare health system is unable to cope with the demand for routine medical services for the most needy.
The culture of Islamic inbreeding is so well established and accepted in Australia that a Queens Council appointed at tax payers expense,to defend a member of a Muslim Gang Rape gang,responsible for what Police believe were up to 100 gang rapes of Australian children, known as the Skaf Brothers, used Muslim inbreeding as a defence for his clients participation in the gang rapes of what Muslims described as “ Aussie Sluts and Pigs” citing his physical deformities due to him been one of eleven children born to a mother married to her cousin at the age of 14 as been the cause of his troubled mind and therefore his background should be taken into consideration when sentencing was considered.
To imply that Australia has been diminished and lessened only by the colonization / immigration of Muslims would be incorrect, there are many other separatist cultural groups that have been established in Australia via the myth / ideology of Multiculturalism.
Despite the Australian Labor Party and their Multiculturalism machines non stop insistence that Australians accept without question any and all behaviours illegal or otherwise of their Islamic and other Colonialist friends and indeed guaranteed Australian Labor Party VOTERS has not broken the Australian spirit, Australians will as long as they have breath in their lungs resist the Australian Labor Party sponsored Islamic Intifada and any other Multicultural group the ALP seeks to use to reduce Australia to a third world crap hole like that their new best friends RAN AWAY from.
Related Coverage
- 55,000 migrants arrive each year Herald Sun, 17 Feb 2010
- Populate and pollute Herald Sun, 19 Jan 2010
- Let states take tax to fund future The Australian, 27 Dec 2009
- 'Shut the door on Kiwis' Perth Now, 12 Nov 2009
- Shut the door on Kiwis Courier Mail, 11 Nov 2009
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